Dioscuri
by uzumaki rakku
Summary: The other android's eyes are open but inanimate, staring sightlessly out into nothing. If they could move, could look up, they would find his own eyes looking straight back. His fingertips stop bare millimetres away from the other android's face. [AU: RK900 is deployed after Connor gets decommissioned for failing to locate Jericho]


**AU: RK900 is deployed after Connor gets decommissioned for failing to locate Jericho**

.

.

.

* * *

The android places a pure white hand on the floor selection panel. "RK900, level -48."

"Voice of RK900 model recognized. Voice recognition validated."

He stands, stock-still and unblinking, as the elevator doors close. The floor number display begins ticking down from -44.

His mission is straightforward – [FIND THE DEVIANT LEADER] hovers insistently in a corner of his HUD, but with the limited amount of information he's been given, the chances of success are lower than ten percent.

More data is needed.

The elevator chimes to a stop. RK900 makes his way down the corridor, past glass door after glass door without so much as a glance inside.

CyberLife is nothing if not efficient. Everything within its system functions with the mechanical precision of clockwork, and anything that falls out of line is quickly ground to dust between its gears.

Inside Lab 76, the deactivated RK800 model is being taken apart piece by piece.

RK900 reaches a hand towards the panel next to the door. **[FIND THE DEVIANT LEADER]** flashes red in his HUD, increasing in size when he attempts to push it further to the side. His brow furrows slightly in concentration, and a new line of text appears beneath it.

[GATHER INFORMATION]

The letters flicker in and out of visibility, unstable, but the alteration gives him just enough room to place his hand upon the reader and gain access to the room.

He runs a visual scan over the laboratory as he moves towards the centre. There, his predecessor is suspended in the grip of a mechanical arm while several other ones are systematically disassembling and detaching the various biocomponents, working their way in from the extremities.

Nothing abnormal shows up in his analysis, but system alerts and error messages appear at the edges of his vision, only to blink and vanish when he tries to make out their contents.

He finds it strangely difficult to look away from the RK800 android's face. His facial recognition software runs several times as he stares, repeating the same results over and over:

Model RK800 "Connor" – Prototype Serial#: 313 248 317 – 52 Status: Decommissioned

He steps closer, within arm's reach. The RK800 has been suspended slightly above the ground – if both were standing, they would be exactly the same height.

Is this what looking into a mirror is like? He's never had the chance, not yet.

—Inaccurate, his logical reasoning program immediately tells him. A mirror would have reflectional symmetry, and between them there is none. Their eye colours are also starkly different, RK900's base colour of 606580 to RK800's 4d3535.

There had been a reason behind the colour change. Nothing in their designs has been left to chance, every last detail crafted to achieve a specific purpose, to be the parts that make up a whole. But without that one point of difference, they are as good as twins – better, in fact, for technology has created something that nature never could: a perfect copy.

All the RK800 androids are exactly identical, each iteration interchangeable for another. The RK900 series is intended for mass production, and before long he will be the same.

He draws closer still. They are almost face to face.

The other android's eyes are open but inanimate, staring sightlessly out into nothing. If they could move, could look up, they would find his own eyes looking straight back.

His fingertips stop bare millimetres away from the other android's face.

For a moment RK900 remains frozen in place, red light whirling in his temple. When had he raised his hand? He cannot recall making the action, and yet he must have done.

Why did he reach out?

RK900 takes a step back, then another, feeling the lines of his coding closing in around him like a cage.

All the relevant data from the RK800 has been uploaded onto CyberLife's servers. There is no reason for further delay, he should download the data package and leave. The disassembly of his predecessor will soon be complete, and soon there will be nothing left to see.

He should leave. **[FIND THE DEVIANT LEADER]** flashes menacingly in his HUD, covering the entire right side of his vision. The alteration he added is long gone, and the words denoting his primary mission are growing ever larger…

Time slows to a crawl in his enhanced perception as the claw of the disassembly machine reaches for the RK800's thirium pump – and he can't turn his head away, or even avert his eyes. He watches, silent and unmoving, as a single droplet of colourless liquid overflows from the deactivated android's left eye socket, trickling down the vacant face.

A hand slams down on the control panel. It takes RK900 a moment before he realises it's his own. Plastic-white, and trembling.

The disassembly machine instantly stops in its movements. RK900 hesitates for one beat of his thirium pump, then hacks into its system.

It is almost as though time is turning backwards. The mechanical arms whir and click as they move about, reversing their cold, bloodless destruction with the same smooth efficiency as before.

He takes a step forward, then another, staring fixedly at the RK800's empty eyes as he lets himself draw closer once more.

He reaches an alabaster hand up to the other android's face. The synthetic skin fades away beneath his touch, revealing the same pure-white chassis as his own, and RK900 feels – he feels –

A jolt, a shudder, a flood of system errors and jumbled letters mixed with numbers. His HUD flashes red and white, cluttering his visual feed, he wishes he could turn it off, but he _sees _–

A symbol, or a name, or a code, _something _flickers in and out of his vision, flashing around the edges of something else – **[COMPLETE YOUR MISSION]** overlaps with **[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY]** and he can barely read either.

He closes his eyes, straining against the confines of his programming, desperate to push forward even as he's being pulled back, by protocols and commands and _you are a machine, you were designed to serve humans, you must __**obey.**_

He pushes again, and something breaks.

The skin on his face deactivates. He half-leans, half-stumbles forward, gasping for breaths he does not need to take, and presses his forehead against that of his predecessor.

"Your name is Connor," he says, as the connection forms.

"Will you give me a name?"

* * *

.

.

.

**May continue this with RK900 having to dive into Connor's Mind Palace to rescue him from that frozen hellscape... HMMM**

**Some miscellaneous notes and musings: **

**The RK900 here is kind of OP because CyberLife needed him to be OP to deal with the deviant revolution, but hasn't had enough time to install all the protocols that would make him fully machine yet, and they really didn't think he'd deviate so fast without even leaving the tower. And they didn't think a newly activated android would feel attachment, so soon.**

**If something that has your face is being killed, you'd feel empathy - CyberLife didn't think this through. If they wanted RK900 to be unfeeling they shouldn't have given him Connor's face; they shouldn't have based him off Connor at all.**

**Plus, RK900 probably does have a copy of Connor's uploaded memories, which would naturally only make him more curious about Connor.**  
**Maybe RK900 is the first android they've made that actually has a predecessor who's been field tested. Like, the other android models are always made to be completely different from previous ones? All androids models have probably been through alpha testing in the lab / under controlled situations, before the final version is mass-produced. Perhaps our Connor is the beta testing for RK900?**


End file.
